LED lighting device able to kill coronavirus

Abstract

The present invention relates to a lighting device that can kill coronavirus, said device generating very short, intense pulses of light in the band ranging from 400 to 460 nm that excite LED emitters which generate a sanitising white light having a proportional radiation in the range of 400 to 460 nm. Furthermore, the device can be controlled with a wall switch. Coronavirus is killed by weakening the lipid cover thereof and the device works for all coronavirus variants.

Description

Device to give LED lighting lamps the capacity to destroy coronavirus Field of the invention

[0001] The present invention is developed in the fields of optoelectronics, electronics and physics. Background of the Invention

[0002] Since the middle of the last century, light radiation equipment has been used for sanitization purposes, especially in bactericidal applications. This was done through the use of ultraviolet light, which due to its characteristics should be called ultraviolet radiation rather than ultraviolet light, since this type of radiation is invisible to the eye. With the appearance of the COVID 19 pandemic, the need has been seen to use various means to combat the spread of coronaviruses. The use of ultraviolet radiation has shown serious side effects such as the induction of mutations, structural deterioration effects on plastic surfaces, and carcinogenic effects in humans and animals. However, it has recently been discovered that visible light within a certain wavelength (400 to 460 nanometers), which is a blue-hued light, has the property of effectively attacking coronaviruses.since this light weakens the lipid covering that protects the center of the coronavirus where its genetic material is located, (study on this subject carried out by the Scientific Department of the Army Medical Center, Rome, Italy and the one carried out by researchers from the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, NY, USA) in addition to the fact that on this lipid covering, there is the set of proteins that facilitate the coronavirus to enter the cells that it uses to reproduce. Light radiation with a wavelength between 400 to 460 nanometers has been seen to not only destroy coronaviruses, but also do so without any of the drawbacks that ultraviolet radiation usually presents.

[0003] While it is possible to incorporate this type of blue lighting into luminaires used in homes, businesses, and factories, it is not desirable to give the lighting a blue tint, since in addition to being very annoying, it directly affects circadian cycles. The effect of blue light on the state of wakefulness, alertness, and work situation of human beings has been extensively studied.

[0004] A previous precedent on the use of blue light pulses for the destruction of the coronavirus by weakening its lipid envelope is present in the patent application MX / a / 2020 / 004121 even prior to the international studies that corroborate it, which has a focus on clinical use where blue light pulses of between 400 to 460 nanometers are used combined with ultrasound to treat patients infected with COVID is also present in the patent application MX / a / 2020 / 014241 which is focused on the sanitization of areas or objects with pure blue light and ultrasound as well as for the manufacture of non-passive masks, however in these cases the equipment described in said patents are focused on the use of blue light exclusively and in no way raise the possibility of creating or adapting white light LED emitters that could have the same viral destruction capacity while keeping their lighting properties.

[0005] In accordance with the above, we saw the need to design a type of lighting system that has an appearance as close as possible to white light lighting but that could incorporate within this light, a higher percentage of blue radiation between 400 to 460 nanometers with the necessary characteristics for a rapid and continuous destruction of coronaviruses, this allows to greatly reduce the proliferation of coronaviruses, as well as current and future variations thereof, since unlike vaccines, this process does not need to be specifically designed and modeled to act on a specific strain of coronavirus, it is enough that it is a generic coronavirus for the action of high-intensity pulses of 400 to 460 nm to destroy the pathogen.

[0006] To do this, it is necessary to generate and deliver sufficient amounts of blue light energy so that white light luminaires do not, in turn, convert into blue light luminaires. Instead, their appearance should be primarily white light. This will allow for sustained irradiation, which will go unnoticed and which will destroy coronaviruses both in the air and on exposed surfaces. Brief Description of the Invention

[0007] The technology object of the present invention described here is intended for the destruction of the coronavirus and consists of a circuit that manages the energy provided to the two most widespread types of white LED lighting, adding to these the possibility of having, in addition to the capacity for neutral white light illumination, a virucidal effect that can destroy coronavirus, the two types of traditional LED lighting to which we refer are the RGB system, which uses a set of LED emitting diodes with blue, green and red colors that when mixing their lights give rise to practically white light lighting, the second most widespread type of white LED lighting uses one or more blue LEDs inside a cavity that has a fluorescent screen or filter, which converts the blue radiation into an emanation of practically white light, this type of lighting system is called LED fluorescent lighting.The electronic circuits presented here allow the assembly of an assembly that, when combined with fluorescent-type emission LEDs or RGB-type white light illuminators, generates a series of over-excitation voltage pulses (voltages of 1.5 or more times the nominal working voltage of the LEDs or LED arrays) which in turn allows LED lighting systems to present a new property that effectively combats coronaviruses without altering circadian cycles and without giving a noticeably bluish coloration to the lighting.The overdrive module or circuit feeds the LEDs in a completely different way than conventional, since LEDs are normally powered by a controlled current, either constant or pulsed, but LEDs in their conventional mode of operation, never exceed their maximum operating voltages while our circuit imposes on the LEDs, voltages that exceed several times the nominal operating voltage of the same but it does so for an extremely short time, generally a few microseconds in order to avoid the destruction of the light emitting diodes, this procedure produces pulses of polychromatic light energy in addition to the base wavelength of a monochromatic LED, this special feature not only improves the performance of white light LED luminaires but also allows the production of extraordinarily narrow and powerful blue light pulses that allow the destruction of the coronavirus.

[0008] It is important to note that some of the circuits we present for the assembly of a sanitizing lighting system against coronavirus, have a remote control device that allows increasing or decreasing the relative intensity of the radiation between 400 and 460 nm with respect to the general radiation of white light emitted or perceptible, this device can act by the simple action of the wall switches normally used to activate or turn off the lighting of a sector.

[0009] The circuits described below can be used as a driver that can easily be incorporated into luminaires equipped with white light LED emitters or can be integrated into units that include both the emitters and the controls or drivers. Description of the Figures

[0010] Figure 1 shows the electronic circuit module with voltage overexcitation for the unconventional power supply of lighting LEDs that allows converting an LED luminaire into a sanitizing lighting system capable of destroying coronaviruses, whether the LED emitters are of the RGB or fluorescent type.

[0011] Figure 2 shows the two different types of LED voltage overdrive circuits for lighting, one with constant overvoltage pulses and the other with relaxation or variable overvoltage pulses.

[0012] Figure 3 shows a module with the electronic circuit for constant voltage pulse over-excitation, applied to an array of white fluorescent LEDs, as well as the emission level control in the 400 to 460 nm band.

[0013] Figure 4 shows the operation of the intensity level control in the 400 to 460 nm band emitted by using a wall switch or remote switch.

[0014] Figure 5 shows a sanitizing white light lighting device using fluorescent LED emitters and a variable overvoltage or relaxation voltage overexcitation module.

[0015] Figure 6 shows a modular sanitizing lighting circuit with constant voltage pulse overdrive and remote proportional radiation control.

[0016] Figure 7 This figure shows a comparison of conventional and surge pulsed RGB LED power supply. Detailed Description of the Invention

[0017] The destructive effect that light with a wavelength within 400 to 460 nanometers has on all types of coronavirus has already been proven because this type of light radiation weakens the fatty or lipid coating that protects the genetic material of this type of virus, it is important to note that the technology described here is focused solely on the destruction of coronaviruses. What has been proven so far is that this portion of the light spectrum that goes from 400 to 460 nm destroys coronaviruses, but unless a very high level of energy is used, the destruction process can take a long time and for practical purposes, it is not convenient to use blue light emitters (400 to 460 nanometers) as sanitizing elements in parallel with normal lighting, which is predominantly white light.since in addition to being very annoying the fact that everything illuminated would have a blue tint this type of hue has negative effects on people's circadian cycles in such a way that states of alertness or wakefulness could extend to hours of the day when in certain places you no longer want to work but to rest, that is why we have designed a way to incorporate into a conventional white LED light lighting system, the ability to irradiate the area illuminated by the luminaires with strong pulses of light between 400 and 460 nanometers in wavelength but making these pulses short enough to generate the sanitizing effect without the light from the luminaire appearing blue and taking advantage without any modification of the generally used white light LED illuminators, for this we use what we call overvoltage pulses, which consist of feeding the LED diodes with voltage pulses higher than their nominal level, for example,We can feed or excite an LED whose operating voltage is 2 volts, with pulses of 40 volts but with a duration in the range of a few microseconds, these repetitive pulses are generated by means of circuits that prevent overheating of the LEDs and their destruction.

[0018] We describe below an electronic circuit that we call a voltage overdrive module or circuit for white light LEDs, which contains a driver or controller that manages the LED emitters by means of voltage pulse impacts with a level higher than 1.5 times the nominal operating voltage of the LEDs or LED arrays instead of using controlled current sources.

[0019] We use the term driver because of its widespread use to describe a circuit that powers and controls an assembly of LEDs.

[0020] The two basic white light lighting systems with LEDs are the so-called RGB emitters, which use LEDs of three different colors (Red, Green, Blue) whose light is mixed to form an apparently white light emission and the so-called fluorescence emitters, which use one or more blue LEDs, placed in a cavity behind a fluorescent screen, which is excited by blue radiation and produces apparently white secondary light emissions, in both cases, what our design does is excite the primary emission blue LEDs by means of very short duration pulses in the microsecond range but with a voltage amplitude that in any case exceeds the nominal voltages of the LEDs, arrays or matrices of blue LEDs, which consequently gives an emission of blue primary light that mostly covers the spectrum relative to the 400 to 460 nanometer band.If the primary blue lighting to obtain white light were done in a conventional way using, for example, 460 nm blue LEDs. The emission of primary blue light would only contain that wavelength, but by using overvoltage pulses, secondary emissions are produced within the band that goes from 400 to 460 nm, which helps both in the sanitizing aspect and in lighting performance, delivering a greater amount of blue light content without this modifying the perception of apparently white light. This LED lighting lamp converter device for the destruction of the coronavirus is basically constituted, as previously described, by a white light LED emitter and a module or exciter that controls the emitter by feeding it with short duration pulses but of a voltage higher than the nominal voltage of the LED illuminator,This type of excitation can generate, in combination with the white light emitter, a controlled amount of additional radiation in the range of 400 to 460 nanometers in the form of pulses that, by their nature, do not generate a blue perception in the lighting.

[0021] The Device to give LED lighting lamps the capacity to destroy the coronavirus, basically consists, as can be seen in the figure, of a voltage overexcitation module (7) which is connected on one side to the alternating current electrical power supply system (14) by means of two terminals (12), (15) and a switch (13), which is generally the switch that controls the ambient lighting of a place or area, the voltage overexcitation module also has two additional outputs, the positive terminal output (10) and the negative terminal output (11) which are respectively connected to the corresponding inputs of the LED illuminator which can be a white light LED illuminator by fluorescence (6) or an RGB white light illuminator (68), which will respectively emit mostly white light for illumination and a surplus of sanitizing blue light pulses (5) of 400 to 460 nm.

[0022] Referring first to the assembly using white light LED illuminators by fluorescence (6), the voltage overexcitation module circuit (7) acts by sending directly to the LED or matrix of blue LEDs that the white light LED emitters by fluorescence normally have inside and to which we will refer from now on as LED emitter (1), short duration overvoltage pulses (microseconds) and with amplitude levels greater than 1.5 times the nominal excitation voltage of the LED or the array of blue LEDs, this in turn produces a primary emission of blue light radiation (2) which impacts on the white light conversion screen of fluorescent material (3), thereby obtaining an emission of white light for illumination (4) accompanied by an excess of sanitizing blue light pulses (5), this is mainly due to the fact that fluorescent conversion screens have a limited capacity to convert radiation in the blue band into white light, that is, this screen can perform the conversion up to a certain amount of blue radiation, but there comes a time when an excess of blue radiation can no longer be converted and therefore will pass through the screen retaining its characteristic wavelength of between 400 and 460 nm.and only a fraction of the emitted blue light will be converted to white light allowing a portion of the microsecond duration but very intense light pulses due to the excitation overvoltage to pass through the screen such that the entire illuminator assembly generates the desired combination of white and sanitizing light. The voltage overexcitation module (7) also has a remote sanitizing level control (8) and a voltage overexcitation circuit or driver (9).

[0023] The diagram (16) schematically describes the two versions of the overexcitation circuit that we use for this purpose, the diagram (16) shows the nature of the overexcitation pulses that are applied to the LED emitter (1) in the constant voltage pulse version, which as can be seen is a voltage that exceeds its nominal voltage, in its simplest form the circuit to perform this task is formed by an energy storage capacitor (C) whose value fluctuates between 500 and 2000 microfarads, this capacitor is charged to a voltage Vh that exceeds the nominal operating voltage of the LED emitter (1) and when a switch (Q) which in this case is a field effect transistor is put into full conduction by a pulse on its gate, the entire voltage Vh will be applied across the LED emitter (1),This is done for a few microseconds so that the amount of energy supplied to the LED emitter (1) over one second does not exceed the nominal power of the LED emitter (1), this is determined by adding the energy of all the pulses that occur in one second avoiding the destruction of the LED emitter. As can be seen the voltage across the LED emitter (1) will remain constant throughout the duration of the pulse.

[0024] The second version of the overexcitation system shown in diagram (17) of the, is constituted by a circuit similar to a relaxation oscillator, this version has in some cases the advantage of being a more economical and compact solution than the constant overvoltage pulse version, in this case, a capacitor (C) with a value between 500 and 2000 microfarads, is charged to a voltage Vh with which in turn a capacitor (Cd) of smaller proportions of between 1 nanofarad and 1 microfarad is charged through a resistance (R) and when the voltage across (Cd) reaches a certain value, it is discharged through the LED emitter (1) by the action of the electronic switch (Q) which in this case is a field effect transistor,This produces the effect that the voltage across the LED emitter (1) starts at a very high value and subsequently this voltage decreases until the discharge flow through it is interrupted as can be seen in diagram (17) and this is repeated successively taking care that the amount of energy applied in each pulse multiplied by the number of pulses emitted in one second, does not exceed the nominal power of the LED emitter (1) since each LED or matrix of LEDs have a specific nominal power.

[0025] White light LED emitters by fluorescence are possibly the most used in industry, commerce and home because they have significant advantages in terms of cost and ease of operation compared to RGB type LED white light emitters, although the light emission spectrum of fluorescent LED emitters covers a broad spectrum or a broad band of wavelengths that usually range from the low 400 nanometers to the high 600 nanometers, its sanitizing effect on coronaviruses is gradual and it takes a long time of exposure for the coronaviruses to be destroyed, this is why our system uses a very specific process to strengthen the delivery of energy within the band of 400 to 460 nanometers but with the possibility that this does not alter the white appearance of the lighting and without having a negative effect on people's circadian cycles,the latter is reinforced by the use of wall switches that are used to activate the lighting in certain areas as an element that allows controlling the maximum amount of light energy within the blue band in a simple way and with a minimum additional cost, in it, an electronic diagram corresponding to a voltage overexcitation module (7) is presented, connected to a white light LED illuminator by fluorescence (6), in this case the voltage overexcitation module (7) is equipped with a circuit that allows modifying the amount of light energy in the wavelength range of 400 to 460 nm. by the action of the wall switch (13), graphs (38) and (39), illustrate the light emission spectrum controlled by the action of the wall switch (13) which operates as follows, if the user at a given time closes the switch (13),we will have a light emission similar to that shown in graph (39), and it will remain so until the user activates the wall switch (13) turning off the lighting unit, but if the user, once he has turned on the lighting unit using the wall switch (13), turns it off and turns it on again before a pre-established time has elapsed (from one to three seconds), the light emission will have a configuration similar to that shown in graph (38), considerably reducing the amount of energy emitted within the 400 to 460 nm band. In this mode, the modulation system will continue to have a sanitizing effect on coronaviruses, but will present minimal interaction with the circadian cycles of the people who are in the illuminated enclosure. In it, the sequence of operation of the wall switch (13) is graphically presented.which allows to control the percentages of irradiation towards the illuminated area.

[0026] In the diagram (16) (see) a voltage overdrive module circuit is presented (7) in the constant voltage overfeed pulse mode as shown in diagram (16) (see), in this case, the overdrive driver circuit produces pulses of very short duration but with a voltage that exceeds the nominal value of the operating voltage of the LED emitter (1) to which said circuit is connected by means of terminals (10), (11), this circuit is presented made by using certain integrated circuits but these can be replaced by integrated or discrete electronic elements that can perform the same function, simply by means of a cost-benefit evaluation criterion, thus the FLIP-FLOP circuit (19), which is a bistable multivibrator like the CD 4013, can be replaced by another circuit that performs the same function or by a microcontroller that emulates the functions of the CD 4013,the same applies to the driver or current amplifier circuit (18), which in this case is a MOS MCP 14A0602 driver, which can be replaced by any current amplifier circuit or a circuit dedicated to driving MOS transistor gates. When the wall switch (13) is closed, a rectifier / regulator circuit (45) together with the capacitor (26), provides a direct current voltage whose voltage magnitude is more than 1.5 times the nominal operating voltage of the LED emitter (1), on the other hand the rectifier / regulator (45) and the capacitor (26), will define the ground point (33), the active and passive operating circuits of the voltage overexcitation driver, are fed by a voltage coming from a regulator that allows to have a voltage at the level required by the operating integrated circuits and that will depend on the type of circuit family to which they belong,for example for a CD4013 belonging to the CMOS family, a voltage between 5 and 15 volts is appropriate as it will also be for the power supply of the current amplifier (18), the diagram shows how this voltage can be obtained through the action of a Zener diode (23) fed by a resistor (25) and accompanied by a capacitor (24) as a buffering and filtering element; if at a given time the voltage at the activation input (EBL) of the current amplifier circuit (18) or MOS driver, is at a logic level one of the circuit equal to the input (IN), in this case the output (OUT) of the current amplifier (18), will be at a logic level one, very close to the supply voltage value determined by the Zener diode (23),this will cause the transistor (65) which can be a field effect transistor to enter into full conduction causing practically all the voltage accumulated in the capacitor (26) to be presented on the terminals of the LED emitter (1) because the resistance (21) that connects the source of the transistor (65) with ground has a value of just a few tenths of an ohm (between 0.1 and 1 ohm), this resistance (21), operates as a monitoring element that allows calculating the amount of current that is flowing through the LED emitter (1), the voltage across the resistance (21) is connected to the base of the NPN transistor (20) through the resistance (22) and if the transistor (32) is not in conduction, when the voltage across the monitoring resistance (21) exceeds 0.7 volts, the NPN transistor (20) will enter into conduction draining the charge of the capacitor (36) which in turn determines that the transistor (65) stops conducting ending the voltage pulse on the LEDs,however if the FET type transistor (32) is activated, a voltage divider will be formed between the resistor (22) and the resistor (31) one of whose ends will now be practically at ground level, in this case, for the NPN transistor (20) to be activated, a voltage level will be required across the monitoring resistor (21) greater than 0.7 volts, increasing the amount of energy of each pulse which determines that the amount of energy of each voltage pulse on the LEDs increases, once this has happened the NPN transistor (20) will also cut off since there will no longer be current flow through the resistor (21), allowing the capacitor (36) to charge through resistor (37) until reaching the level that allows the activation of the current amplifier (18) again, activating the transistor (65) again to start the generation of a new voltage pulse on the LED emitter (1),A protection diode (67) helps protect the LED emitter from reverse voltage overshoots.,

[0027] As can be seen, the voltage across the resistor (21) allows to control the maximum amount of energy provided to the LED emitter (1) in each pulse, this is why the transistor (32) can act as an additional control element over this amount of energy since if this transistor (32) is cut off, the NPN transistor (20) will start to conduct as soon as the voltage across the resistor (21) exceeds 0.7 volts, but if the transistor (32) is in full conduction, a voltage divider will be formed with the resistor (22) and the resistor (31) causing the voltage across the resistor (21) necessary for the NPN transistor (20) to start its conduction to increase depending on the relationship between the resistors (22) and (31), in this case the amount of energy allowed in each pulse on the LED emitter (1) would be increasing, the action of the transistor (32) is controlled by the inverting output of the FLIP-FLOP circuit (19),so depending on the state that this output keeps will depend on the emission of a greater or lesser amount of light within the band of 400 to 460 nanometers, the action of this FLIP-FLOP type circuit (19), is determined by a sequence of actions in the wall switch (13) operating as follows: when the wall switch (13) is activated for the first time, the capacitor (35) will be discharged and therefore will establish a reset condition on the FLIP-FLOP circuit (19), the clock signal for the FLIP-FLOP circuit (19) is given through its clock input connected to the resistors (29), (30) and the buffer capacitor (28) which in turn is connected by means of the diode (27) to the power supply input at the terminal (12) this allows that the signal at the clock input is always within the operating limits of the same, in this condition, the negated Q output will be at a level of one putting the transistor into conduction (32),if the wall switch (13) is turned off and turned back on before a couple of seconds, the capacitor (35) will have already charged to zero level by means of the resistor (34) which is connected to ground and when a new clock signal enters the FLIP-FLOP circuit (19), it will change state because the data input is connected to the negated Q output and now the negated Q output will go to ground level cutting off the action of the transistor (32) which directly affects the amount of energy allowed in each pulse on the LED emitter (1), as can be seen, the amount of energy emitted in the range of 400 to 460 nanometers, can be controlled by a simple action of the wall switch (13) producing either a low sanitization light or a high sanitization light for coronavirus,the sequential operation of this control can be seen in the and it is important to establish that given the characteristics of the LED emitters of white light by fluorescence, these are designed to accept a certain amount of blue light energy that will be converted to white light but within a specific range of wavelengths and when these limits of energy level and wavelengths are exceeded, the excess contributes little to the generation of more white light, so that part of the excess of the blue excitation light passes through the fluorescent screen maintaining a mostly blue condition but given that in our design these pulses are generated in an intense and brief manner, they are not greatly appreciated by the user giving the general appearance that the illumination light is basically white. The shows an operation sequence of the wall switch (13) being able to appreciate that this control works as follows,by activating the wall switch (13) the sanitizing lighting system will be activated with a maximum fullness of radiation intensity in the 400 to 460 nanometer band, this condition will remain as long as the wall switch (13) remains closed but if at any given time the user wants to limit this amount of blue sanitizing emission, simply open the wall switch (13) and close it again before 2 seconds, this will cause the sanitizing lighting system to continue having this effect but with a lower production of light pulses from 400 to 460 nanometers, this condition will prevail until the user decides to turn off the light, if they do this and more than 2 seconds pass before reactivating, the lighting system will be activated the next time the wall switch (13) is closed producing maximum sanitization against coronavirus, this faculty that our design presents,It is very useful for example when the maximum sanitization level is being used in a home room but the user already wants to prepare to rest and sleep, many studies have revealed that if the ambient lighting has a lot of participation of wavelengths in the blue band, it will be difficult to rest and fall asleep, since bluish lighting induces a state of alertness, however we want to note that our excitation system for white LED emitters produces a minimal sensation of blue tint and has little effect on circadian cycles but with this we give the user the possibility of reducing the emission of blue radiation to a minimum although the anti-COVID sanitization effect continues to occur, although with less blue emission, it takes the lighting system longer to destroy the coronavirus.

[0028] As shown in for the implementation of this system that allows giving LED lighting lamps sanitizing capacity, we designed two options for the voltage overexcitation module, the first one we call constant voltage overexcitation (57) operates in a similar way to the circuit presented in , only that in this one, it is difficult to appreciate the separation between what constitutes the voltage overexcitation driver (9) and what is the remote control of the sanitization level (8) The second configuration of the overexcitation system makes use of a relaxation overexcitation module (56) as presented in , in this case, a capacitor (50), will be charged to a level higher than 1.5 times the nominal voltage of the LED emitter, to subsequently discharge it on said LED emitter (1),generating a voltage pulse through the LED emitter (1) which will gradually decrease until the capacitor (50) is practically completely discharged, once this has happened, said capacitor (50) will be charged again to its original voltage level by the action of the PNP transistor (43), the resistor (47) that acts as a charge limiting element and by the control exerted by the resistors (48) and (49) on the base of the PNP transistor (43), when the NPN transistor (42) is in saturation, this is possible and this NPN transistor (42) will remain in saturation by the action of the resistor (55) which in turn is connected to the output of the inverter (44), the input of this inverter is in turn connected to the gate of the transistor (40) so that when the transistor (40) is in conduction, the NPN transistor (42) will be in cut-off, the gate of the transistor (40) is controlled by the comparator (41),which compares the reference level at the junction of the resistors (51) and (52) with the voltage level across the capacitor (50) affected by the voltage divider formed by the resistors (53) and (54), when this level reaches a preset upper limit, the comparator output (41) will go from a zero level to a voltage that will allow full conduction of the transistor (40) and because the resistor (54) is connected between the non-inverting input of the comparator and its output, a positive feedback effect is produced that favors the increase in voltage at the gate input of the transistor (40), this quickly discharges the capacitor (50) through the LED emitter (1), such that when the voltage across the capacitor (50) has decreased to a level such that the voltage at the non-inverting input of the comparator (41) is lower than the voltage at the inverting input thereof,the comparator (41) will change state at its output and again a positive feedback effect will be created through the resistor (54), completely turning off the transistor (40) and in this way this cycle will be repeated indefinitely but always with a synchronization between the charging period of the capacitor and the discharge period of the same, which is achieved by the signal at the gate of the transistor (40) that is connected to an inverter (44) and subsequently to the NPN transistor (42) that controls the charging process of the capacitor, to prevent the LED emitter (1) from burning out, a calculation is made based on the nominal power of the LED emitter (1), the value of the capacitor (50), the maximum voltage at which it is charged and the intrinsic time delays of the inverter (44), the NPN transistor (42), the PNP transistor (43) and the comparator (41) itself, this allows to determine the voltage and the duration of each instantaneous pulse,which are repeated “n” times per second and for which they must multiply their energy by a factor “n” to evaluate the total energy per second to maintain the operation of the LEDs within safe limits, the process to determine the values ​​of each component that guarantee a safe and controlled operation of the LED emitters, can be done empirically if not all the active and passive elements that intervene in the time delay in which an action is ordered and executed completely are at hand, if you want to have a lower number of pulses per second, a capacitor with a value in the nanofarad range can be placed between the base of the NPN transistor (42) and ground. In summary, the values ​​of the passive and active components that make up this voltage overexcitation driver are easily calculable so that, even if the LED emitters are fed with voltage pulses that exceed their nominal operating value,operation in “DC” this does not cause the destruction of the LED emitter since the total power is not exceeded at any time. Also in the can be seen that a remote control of sanitization level (8), is connected to the overexcitation driver in such a way that a control output of the remote control of sanitization level (8) is connected directly to the inverting input of the comparator (41), a rectifier / regulator (45) and a capacitor (46) connected to it, allow to have a direct current voltage for the management of the circuits.,

[0029] Although a complete white lighting circuit for COVID sanitization is described in the following, this circuit being completely specific in terms of the use of certain integrated circuits, a more general block diagram of a constant voltage overdrive module (57) is presented, connected to a white light LED illuminator by fluorescence (6). In the following, a circuit is detailed in which a capacitor (64) is charged to a voltage greater than 1.5 times the nominal operating voltage of a white light LED illuminator by fluorescence (6), this is achieved through a voltage regulator (63) while a rectifier / regulator (45) provides a voltage level for powering the integrated circuits and electronics in general, a current amplifier (59) or MOS driver controls the activation or cutting of the transistor (65) in such a way that when the output of the multivibrator circuit (61) is at level one,This level will be presented at the input of the current amplifier (59) causing the output of this to rise and when it is connected to the gate of the transistor (65), it causes the transistor (65) to go into complete conduction presenting through terminals 10 and 11 of the white light LED illuminator by fluorescence (6) all the voltage accumulated in the capacitor (64) which has a base value of between 500 and 2000 microfarads, all this voltage is consequently applied through the blue LED emitter (1) that is located inside the white light LED illuminator by fluorescence (6), this action consequently causes a small but abrupt increase in voltage through the monitoring resistor (66) that has a value between 1 ohm and one tenth of an ohm,the voltage across this monitoring resistor (66) is connected to a power control circuit (58) which causes the output of the comparator (60) to give a reset signal to the multivibrator circuit (61) which causes the output of this to drop to zero and consequently the current amplifier 0 (59) turns off the transistor (65) when according to pre-established criteria the power control (58) determines that the voltage across the monitoring resistor (66) has reached a level that could lead to the destruction of the LED emitter (1), an empirical process allows the adjustment and calibration of this power control (58) so that the sum of all the partial energies applied to the LED emitter (1) in each pulse and multiplied by the number of pulses generated in one second, do not exceed the limit established by the nominal power of the blue light LED emitter (1) that is inside the white light LED illuminator by fluorescence (6),This action is complemented by the adjustment of the oscillator (62), which determines how many overvoltage pulses will be applied per second to the LED emitter (1). The power control (58) receives a signal from the remote sanitization level control (8) to allow the COVID sanitization energy level to be varied.

[0030] The anti coronavirus lighting system can be carried out as already described, using the voltage overexcitation module and an RGB type white light LED emitter, in this case, the RGB type white light illuminator is a unit that contains three LEDs of different colors, red, green and blue whose acronym in English gives it the name RGB, as can be seen in the, an RGB type white light illuminator (68) is generally powered by the use of resistors of different values ​​​​that helps compensate for the fact that each of the different colored LEDs have a different nominal operating voltage, for example the red LED can have an operating voltage of 2 volts while the green normally operates at 2.3 volts and the blue at 2.5 volts, in this way an operation of the three LEDs in parallel does not seem possible with conventional means, as can be seen in the,the conventional excitation of RGB LEDs (69) is done by taking the cathodes that are generally connected to the device and placing them to ground, while three resistors (71), (72), (73), of different values ​​are placed at the anodes of each of the LEDs to subsequently join the resistors in a single point that is connected to a constant voltage "Ve", the graph attached to this diagram of the, shows that in this way although the set is fed with a general voltage "Ve", each of the LEDs will be operating at its nominal operating voltage, here you can also see what would be the excitation or feeding of an RGB set by means of an RGB excitation system with overvoltage pulses (70), this diagram does not show the voltage overexcitation module but its output (Es) and all the anodes of the LEDs are joined together as well as each of the cathodes respectively, as can be seen in the attached graph,in this case these LEDs connected in parallel are fed with pulses of short duration but with a voltage that exceeds several times the nominal operating voltage of each of the LEDs, using this technique, it can be seen that if the RGB set contains LEDs whose nominal operating voltage differential ranges from 2 to 2.5 volts, when fed with narrow pulses of 60 volts, the differential of 0.5 volts becomes secondary and the excitation of the LEDs by means of overvoltage pulses produces secondary emission at wavelengths different from the original of each LED, in fact, the green LED will emit in the band corresponding to green but also smaller amounts of light in the blue region, while the red will essentially emit light in the fundamental red wavelength, but also smaller amounts of light energy in the rest of the visible spectrum, this in turn reinforces the total emission of blue light, since when an LED is excited with overvoltage pulses,This LED emits light primarily in its natural wavelength but also in shorter wavelengths, so the blue LED will emit as a secondary effect in the portion of shorter wavelength than the natural one, the green will emit secondary light in wavelengths shorter than its natural plus the fundamental one, that is, in the green, blue and violet bands while the red will emit light in the red, yellow, green, blue and violet bands.

[0031] In short, the device to give LED lighting lamps the ability to destroy coronavirus, is composed of a voltage overexcitation module that when connected to a white light LED illuminator, whether RGB or fluorescent,In addition to its lighting capacity with apparently white light, it is given the possibility of having an anti-coronavirus sanitizing effect and the luminaires made in this way can be used with the presence of human beings in them without this having side effects on the materials or living beings and particularly works based on the interaction of brief overvoltage pulses on the intrinsic characteristics of the LED white light illuminators unlike other systems that can use overexcitation on generic individual LEDs and we also incorporate in this application the concept of overexcitation pulses in the relaxation pulse mode with which it is possible to optimize the emission of white light that also incorporates high intensity pulses of between 400 to 460 nm in a practically imperceptible way.

Claims

A device for giving LED lighting lamps the ability to destroy coronavirus, characterized in that it comprises a voltage overexcitation module having four terminals, two of which are connected to the electrical power supply through a switch and two others that are connected directly to a fluorescent or RGB type white LED illuminator, wherein said voltage overexcitation module is in turn constituted by an overexcitation driver and a remote sanitization level control, and wherein the overexcitation module provides the white LED illuminators with controlled voltage pulses that exceed by at least 1.5 times the magnitude of the nominal operating voltage of the LED illuminator. The device for giving LED lighting lamps the ability to destroy coronavirus according to claim number 1, wherein the voltage overexcitation driver is a relaxation-type circuit characterized in that it has a capacitor that is charged through a transistor that constitutes a current source controlled by a second transistor and the corresponding bias and reference resistors, the latter transistor activating or cutting off the current supply to the capacitor according to a signal that in turn controls the activation or cutting off of a field-effect transistor that is connected to the LEDs of the illuminator in such a way that when this transistor is activated, all the charge of the capacitor is drained through the LEDs,The gate of the field-effect transistor is controlled by a comparator with positive feedback that compares the voltage across the capacitor with a reference voltage level set by a voltage divider connected to a fixed voltage, such that the capacitor's discharge through the LEDs is inversely synchronized with the capacitor's charging. Therefore, while the capacitor is charging, it is not possible for it to discharge, and while the capacitor is discharging, the charging of the same capacitor is suspended.All these circuits are powered by a rectifier and a power capacitor, while a sanitization level control circuit regulates the maximum voltage level of the discharge pulses by modifying the reference level at the comparator's inverting input. This level can be modified by sequential action of the switch that connects the voltage overexcitation module to the electrical power supply. The device for giving LED lighting lamps the ability to destroy coronavirus according to claim 1, wherein the remote control of the sanitization level is characterized in that it consists of a multivibrator connected in the form of a bistable unit of the FLIP-FLOP type, where its reset input is connected to a capacitor which in turn is connected to the positive supply voltage of the circuit and on the other hand to ground through a resistor, the inverting output of the multivibrator is connected to the D input or data input and in turn connected to the gate of a field-effect transistor whose source is connected to ground and whose drain is connected to a resistor whose free end is connected to an element of the overexcitation driver circuit which controls the energy of each pulse applied to the LEDs,The multivibrator's clock input is connected to a voltage divider, one end of which is grounded and the other connected to the point where a capacitor (also grounded) and a diode connected to the power supply meet. This ensures that the clock input receives signals within the multivibrator's operating range, but that when the power supply is interrupted by the switch connected for this purpose, the voltage across the capacitor drops until it crosses the operating limit, equivalent to zero at the multivibrator's clock input. The device for giving LED lighting lamps the ability to destroy coronavirus according to claim 1, wherein the voltage overexcitation driver is characterized as a device that powers the LED unit by means of constant voltage pulses with a magnitude exceeding 1.5 times the nominal operating voltage of the LEDs and having a capacitor which is charged by means of a voltage regulator device to a value greater than 1.5 times the nominal operating voltage of the LEDs or the set of LEDs to whose positive input said capacitor is connected while the cathode or negative input of the white LED illuminator is connected to an electronic switch consisting of a field-effect transistor whose source is connected to ground by means of a monitoring resistor while the junction between the transistor and the resistor is connected to a power control circuit which in turn isIt connects to a comparator whose output is in turn connected to the reset input of a multivibrator whose output is connected to a MOS driver or current amplifier, the output of which controls the activation or cutoff of the transistor to whose gate it is connected. An oscillator connected to the clock input of the multivibrator determines the frequency of the emitted pulses, while the power control circuit dynamically determines the duration of each pulse. The device for giving LED lighting lamps the ability to destroy coronavirus according to claim 1, characterized in that the voltage overexcitation module is constituted by a voltage overexcitation driver that feeds the white LED light illuminator with constant voltage pulses and an amplitude greater than 1.5 times the nominal operating voltage of the LED or set of LEDs located inside the white LED light illuminator.This is a self-oscillating driver powered by a regulator circuit that provides the integrated circuits with the necessary DC voltage level for their operation, taking its energy from a rectifier and a capacitor connected to the electrical power supply through an external switch. This switch has the dual function of enabling the activation of the white LED illuminator and simultaneously controlling the proportion of blue light pulses between 400 and 460 nm relative to the total light generated by the illuminator, including the white light, through a sequential action of this switch. This capacitor remains charged at a voltage greater than 1.5 times the nominal operating voltage of the LED or set of LEDs and is connected to ground and to the anode or positive input of the LED or set of LEDs, while the cathode or negative input of said LED or set of LEDs,It is connected to a field-effect transistor whose gate is connected to the output of a MOS driver current amplifier such as the MCP14A0602, whose input is connected to the supply voltage of this integrated circuit, while its activation input (EBL) is connected to a resistor connected to the supply voltage on one side and to a capacitor that is in turn connected to ground, so that when the voltage across this capacitor exceeds the threshold level of the current amplifier, its output will go to level one, and when this level is below the threshold level, it will go to level zero, allowing the activation and cutoff of the field-effect transistor, whose source is connected to ground through a monitoring resistor, which in turn is connected to the base of an NPN transistor through a resistor.Since the emitter of the NPN transistor is connected to ground and its collector to the capacitor connected to the control input of the current amplifier, when the voltage across the monitoring resistor exceeds the bias threshold of the NPN transistor (0.7 Volts), this transistor will enter a conduction state, discharging the capacitor connected to its collector. This causes the field-effect transistor to abruptly stop conducting current, and it will remain so until the capacitor connected to the control input of the current amplifier charges through the resistor connected between this point and the supply voltage of the current amplifier. When this happens, the cycle repeats to generate a new voltage pulse across the LED or array of LEDs.The amount of energy delivered to each pulse is determined by the action of a resistor connected to the base of the NPN transistor and a FET transistor connected to ground. When the latter is in full conduction, the aforementioned resistor forms a voltage divider together with the resistor connected between the base of the NPN transistor and the monitoring resistor. This causes the voltage across the monitoring resistor to be greater than 0.7 volts, activating the NPN transistor and suspending the flow of energy through the LED or set of LEDs. The FET transistor is connected to the inverting output of a CD4013 multivibrator and to the data input, so every time the clock input of this multivibrator changes state, so will the non-inverting output of the multivibrator.The reset input is connected to ground via a resistor and to the circuit's supply voltage via a capacitor, while the clock input is connected to a voltage divider connected to ground and a capacitor connected in turn via a diode to the AC power supply, with the other end of said capacitor connected to ground. This arrangement limits the input voltage level at the clock (CK) of the multivibrator and allows control of the state changes at its output based on a sequence of connections and disconnections of the external switch that controls the power supply to all circuits.

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